MORE EVIDENCE THAT OBAMACARE IS A FLOP! (Like we needed any more)

Another Obamaism can now officially go in the column marked, "Wishful Thinking." This one was little experiment that was designed to lower costs and coordinate care for those on Medicare. Apparently it has not lived up to its promise, having now officially failed to save the amounts of money that were "expected." And, it just so happens that this little cockamamie experiment forms the base of a plan the Barry "Almighty" administration had hoped to take nationwide as part of Obamacare, or at least that's what is being reported in The Washington com-Post. The premise of this five-year boondoggle was to offer financial bonuses to 10 healthcare systems if they could save money in treating the elderly while still providing a high level of care. In the final year of the study, only four of the 10 had managed to save enough money to qualify for a bonus, two sites cut cost enough to get bonuses all five years, and three never qualified for a bonus, again, as reported by the Post.

The experiment involved what's called, Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), which, I'm told, is a key part of Obamacare. Under the year-old healthcare "reform" law, Medicare must start approving such groups in January. Although there are differences between the groups in the experiment and ACOs, the theory is the same: If healthcare groups can save money in treatment and retain quality, Medicare shares any savings, according to the Post. The experiment began in 2005 under the George W. Bush administration and ended in 2010. The bonuses came if spending could be cut by at least 2 percent and while retaining quality as judged by 32 measures. While all 10 medical groups managed to meet the quality requirements, the money saved was far less than what was anticipated. Which should come as no great surprise to anyone but the designers of this little test. The fact that the grandiose expectations held by today's liberal/progressive dreamers never materialize, doesn't seem to ever have any impact whatsoever on the dreamers.


Innovations created under the program include round-the-clock telephone access to nurses that cut down on doctor visits and a call-line for heart patients, as reported by the Post. Gail Wilensky, who was President George H.W. Bush’s head of Medicare and Medicaid, told the Post that the experiment’s results suggest that the idea may not be ready to go nationwide, adding, “If it was this tough for this group that I had just assumed would be hands-down winners, what does it say for groups that don’t have a long history of coming together?” This is nothing but another Democrat shell game that most definitely is not ready for primetime. Guys like Barry fail to realize, or simply chose to ignore, that when the free-market is left to do its thing with minimal government interference, the system works remarkably well and quite efficiently. But whenever the government mucks things up, results never match expectations. NEVER.